Apocalypse Now
by Sir-Mercutio-McHuffer
Summary: It began in the Waitomo. First it was a deep-cave expedition, funded to research the unique ecosystem within the caverns that no light touches, realising their brand new and terribly expensive equipment had stopped functioning. Then it was cavers reporting their phones and cameras were breaking during their travels through the system. Then spelunkers started going missing.
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** This is what happens when I get inspired. Hello Blight.

For those of you who are wondering, this is set in modern-day New Zealand. Explanations to follow much later as the story progresses.

**Disclaimer:**

I own nothing you recognise. This is all completely un-beta'd and totally fresh off the top of my brain!

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><p>It began in the Waitomo.<p>

First it was a deep-cave expedition, funded to research the unique ecosystem within the caverns that no light touches, realising their brand new and terribly expensive equipment has stopped functioning. Then it was cavers reporting their phones and cameras were breaking during their travels through the system.

Then spelunkers started going missing.

The caves were shut down after the third person in two weeks. Shortly after that, the town went dark.

The poison quickly spread to Otorohanga in the north and Te Kuiti in the south, rampaged through Pirongia Forest Park and devoured Hamilton whole.

There were no survivors. Just towns, then cities, going dark. People fled the advancing tide of darkness, heralded by the sudden death of anything with a spark of electricity. Cars shuddered to a stop on highways, chips burnt out. Many continued on on foot, fleeing any populated area, moving steadily away from the expanding devastation.

We were that glorious mix of smart and stupid, holing ourselves up on a farm just south of Auckland. Just off the beaten track enough to miss the encroaching wave of desperate city slickers and far enough away to avoid those who have half an idea of how to survive an apocalyptic event.

But we were stupid. We'd holed ourselves up.

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	2. Chapter 2

**AN:** For the record, I do know where this is going (for once). I also have lofty goals of it being rather long and, if I'm really lucky, maybe even finished one day in the next decade.

I'm trying a few new things here. Firstly, I usually write character-driven fanfiction. I take what people I'm given and play with them. This 'writing off the back of a world' is rather new to me. Secondly, I don't ever write first person. It's quite ... illuminating.

For those of you who are wondering, this is set in modern-day New Zealand. Explanations to follow much later as the story progresses. I'm also sacrificing topography and land ownership for plot, at least in this chapter. The rest of it will be more-or-less on point.

And lastly, I forgot to mention, this will involve none of the Dragon Age folks we have come to know and love. Since I'm rampantly hormonal over Cullen, this is a major concession on my part.

**Disclaimer:**

I own nothing you recognise. This is all completely un-beta'd and totally fresh off the top of my brain!

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><p>To this day I will tell anyone who cares to listen, and even those who don't, that it was the horses that saved our lives at the start. They had been restless the entire week, but on that day, not even Bailando would stand for tacking. Even the hounds were baying, their usual quiet nature set aside by the sense of impending storm.<p>

We had, being smart and forward-thinking women, set up a Zombie Apocalypse plan. Well, when I said we'd set one up, I mean we'd read about ebola and, while drinking and watching Archer, discussed that we'd all meet up at my house, pack up the horses, and head to the holiday home my parents had left me out in the Coromandel. Incredibly remote, it was a four hour drive by car. By horseback? Who bloody well knew, especially given our unfit asses.

The day Hamilton went dark was the day we 'enacted' our plan. Daisy and Josephine drove over to my house, boots full to the brim of anything they could think of. We'd unpacked it all into my house, a little two bedroom cottage on a swathe of farmland big enough for my 'furry entourage' as I called them. Four hounds and five horses – because no one could stop at just one gaited horse, and I of all people certainly couldn't. Once my parents died (and their sensible, restraining presences no longer there), I'd consoled myself with acquiring three _more_ horses (on top of my two) and two more borzoi.

What could I say, I acquired animals like most women acquired shoes. Turns out it wasn't such a dumb idea after all.

So we holed up at my house for a while. Listened to the news, watched it where we could. The TVs were the first to go dark. It seemed the more technologically advanced an object was, the sooner it died. It took another week for the radios to kick the bucket.

That was three days ago.

We had made the decision to start sorting out what we were taking (and how) then. Packed up the Sako rifles, Daisy's bows and arrows, every knife we could find in the house and under it, even the box cutters. Stuffed all the desiccated meats and fruits into saddlebags. Packed vitamin tablets on top of that. Antibiotics, methylated spirits, Daisy's deluxe first aid kit went into another.

We'd raided a camping store once the looting started. Most people went for the supermarkets, or hit the stores with products of financial worth – every store-held TV in Auckland was taken within a matter of days – but we were at least smart enough to go for what we'd _actually_ need should this be the zombie apocalypse.

In went waterproofs, merino under-layers, all the socks and underpants we could find. Water filters, tinder packs, a couple of pots. A couple of new, super-light-weight (incredibly expensive, although inevitably free) tents and three sleeping bags. The kind that managed to disappear into these tiny little bags and weighed almost as much as your average phone. Not that we packed those.

It was a frenzy. Our spines tingled, a sense of lurking doom overcoming us. The horses were picketed out the front, ready to be saddled and strapped down with bags.

Far off in the distance, we heard a roar.

I have never tacked up two horses so fast in my life. The last saddlebag went onto Kinder barely four minutes after we began, and I threw Daisy up onto Dom before releasing the tumbling, terrified, baying hounds from their run.

Bless them and their furry wee paws, not one of the four shagpile rugs even ran away, rather crowded against Perignon as I mounted.

"Jo?" I yelled back into the house. There was a scuff and she came tumbling from the house in her haste, throwing herself onto Katja's back.

"We need to go, no-" The roar was deafening and the horses stampeded. Hooves churned the dirt and careened out of the gate, heedless of the direction they were going only _away, away, far away_ from whatever made that noise. Paws scrabbled and hounds leapt, keeping pace with the thundering mounts, and it was all we could do to cling to their manes and hold on for dear life. Pasture careened by, hills disappearing behind us as we continued our desperate race.

It felt like hours before they finally slowed, feet stumbling and legs quaking beneath their heaving sides. It was even longer before Perignon finally stopped, and I could slide from his back. My own knees wouldn't hold me and I landed with a jolt on my ass in the grass, Peri too exhausted to even flick his ear at me. The hounds piled onto me as first Daisy, and then Jo, slid from their own mounts.

"Sweet baby Jesus," Jo breathed, leaning against Katja. Daisy slid down Dom's front legs to drop her forehead against the ground.

"I think I'm going to be sick," she moaned into the greenery. I pushed a canine nose out of my face, only for it to push itself at my ear.

"Did you..." I began. Jo nodded. "What..?"

"Think evil cave troll with big horns," she gulped out, one hand pressed to her racing heart and eyes wide.

"The fuck," Daisy hissed at the grass.

"Sweet baby Jesus," I agreed, and wrapped both arms around my cream-and-honey hound. "I think," I began. My breath was still clawing down my throat. "We need to rest."

Jo, practical and strong Jo, slumped to the ground herself. "I think so, too." Katja wheezed and Perignon sneezed. Dom just stood there with his head dropped and his sides heaving. We'd even managed to retain Kinder and Bailando through sheer force of the herd dynamic. They stood off to one side, eyes still rolling but legs rooted to the spot.

Nothing was going to move those horses until they'd caught their breath.

I heaved myself to my hands and knees and then slowly, carefully, to my feet. My legs protested as I waddled around, loosening girths and unclipping reins. We left the hackamores on, lead ropes clipped to their halters. The hounds collapsed into a pile of curly fleece-like fur and gangly legs off to one side, well out of the way of the horses. We sat, holding lead ropes and staring numbly into the distance. Where we'd come from.

We couldn't see the farm, of course. We'd fled too fast and too far for that. If I were to hazard a guess I'd say we were somewhere in the sprawling section opposite – to the right it looked like a patch of native bush which could possibly have been the 'token green patch' in the middle of the section (because these days 'all' developers were about saving the environment, and having a 'token green patch' of native bush was the easiest and most cost-effective way of saying 'look! I'm doing my bit for the environment!'). The property was just in the early stages of being subdivided into luxury lots of sprawling hectares and stunning views overlooking the coastal inlet of the Firth of Thames, although we were still maybe ten kilometres off that view.

It was a ridiculously massive section. I still don't know why it took so long to be developed, or even farmed. Hell, it wasn't even farmed. It was to be turned into those dinky little 'lifestyle sections' with multi-million-dollar houses on them and maybe a couple of sheep.

In truth, I was only on this track because my brain was refusing to think about what we fled from. Jo was still ashen, hands stuffed between her knees to stop their shaking. I did _not_ want to think about what could have made that noise, or what that meant. Because that meant admitting that there was something going on, rather than a failure in technology preventing people from contacting one another and letting them know they're okay.

That was something I was so far away from being ready to contemplate.

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	3. Chapter 3

**AN:** Interestingly enough, these are some of the longest chapters I've ever written, and certainly some of the most detailed. I'm really enjoying this first person thing!

**Phrases/words:**

Weta - large insect that looks like a bulbous and large grasshopper, only with really spiny back legs. Has a wide dispersal around New Zealand. Will be found in suburban gardens.

The Tron - Hamilton.

Rotovegas - Rotorua.

Welliboot - Wellington.

**Disclaimer:**

I own nothing you recognise. This is all completely un-beta'd and totally fresh off the top of my brain!

* * *

><p>We rested for as long as we could before the desperate need to get <em>away, far away<em> began crawling up our spines and settling into our bones. The hounds were up and restless, shuffling to and fro with their elongated snouts brushing the ground, hoovering up the scents of the area. The horses had all regained their wind.

Blessedly, we had somehow managed to lose nothing in our escape. The saddlebags were still securely on Bailando and Kinder. We couldn't afford to lose anything we'd packed, especially not now that … well … now that it was all _real_. We were _actually_ riding to the Coromandel. I snorted as I checked saddle blankets and tightened girths.

"Hmm?" Daisy lifted her head at my snort.

"We're actually doing this shit," I replied, waving a hand.

"What, fleeing an evil troll zombie apocalypse?" she asked, tightening the girth on Dom.

"Yes, that." I popped over to double check Dom's girth and give her a hand mounting before handing her Kinder's lead.

"I don't even know what it was," Jo said. "It was..." she shuddered and turned to us, eyes hunted. "I don't know, but we're definitely not looking at a zombie apocalypse."

"Zombies never sounded like that in the movies," Daisy quipped.

"Pretty sure they didn't _look_ like that, either," Jo retorted, gathering up Katja's reins to mount. I clearly didn't think this through. Jo was just over 6 foot and made of legs. Katja was the shortest of my horses, being a wee barrel-bodied Icelandic. The advantage, however, was that Jo could quite comfortably mount from the ground. Which she did so. Although this time round I took my time to make sure everyone's stirrups were the proper length (Jo's needed to be let out by a few notches) for long-distance gaited riding, since we weren't fleeing a roaring troll-beast.

I mounted Perignon, clutching Bailando's lead as I did so. Settled into my saddle, got my legs sorted into the stirrups and looked around.

Shit. "Did anyone bring a compass?" Daisy looked at Jo looked at me and back to Daisy.

"Nope," they replied.

"Shit. So, um, which way does the sun rise and set?" I really should have paid more attention to this kind of thing. Oh, sure, ask me anything about computers or horse feet or what documents you need to file for bankruptcy or what the filing fee is for an interim application and I can tell you. Ask me which way East or West is? Yeah, I just point in random directions and wish my brain retained such a _simple_ fucking fact.

Jo levelled a look at me. "Rises in the east and sets in the west," she said, eyebrow cocked as she looked down at her watch – an old wind-up that had no reliance on electricity so it actually kept time. "And as it's still morning, we want to be riding into the sun. Basically the same way we're pointing."

"Well that's a relief, I wouldn't want to have to double back on that shit." I breathed a sigh of relief. Daisy shook her head and laughed. "Hey, directionally impaired, we knew this going in," I hissed at her. She just laughed harder and nudged Dom forward. Kinder blinked as her lead rope pulled taught and shuffled after the large burnt-brown backside.

"Yeah, this is just so outside the realms of reality I'm trying to figure out if we're all high on acid or something. Shit, even being kidnapped and put in magic fucking dream-machines is more likely in my mind than that _thing_ back there," Jo said, gripping Katja's reins tight and giving her an awkward heel-bump.

"Tuck your butt down a bit more, Jo." Jo was the least experienced rider here, which was why I'd put her on Katja. Despite having the fieriest personality, she was also the most solid under saddle. Perignon had her flights of fancy where she thought she was a wild sparkly thing, while Dom could be totally un-fased by a plastic bag swooping on him, but would take fright to a weta crawling down a tree trunk. I totally sympathised with taking fright to a weta crawling down a tree trunk, I fucking_ hated_ those things with a passion that bordered on insanity, but still.

We didn't know how fortunate we were at the time, but due to the speed at which our horses moved, we managed to out-pace the troll-thing and its orc-ish entourage. They'd been shambling towards us as we rested, our scent high in their nostrils. Our horses quickly settled into their ground-devouring gait, the hounds loping alongside and around us.

We stopped at the thirty minute mark to give them, and ourselves, a rest. My legs were already starting to cramp, and given the way Jo stumbled to the ground on dismount, so were hers. Daisy nearly fell on her ass when she hopped off, leaving Dom startled and snuffling her hair.

"I'm too old for this shit," Daisy groused as she flopped into the grass, Dom and Kinder cropping the grass at her toes. Pavel, my glorious creamy borzoi, flopped down with his head in her lap. The other three sprawled in a loose semi-circle around us. Being couch-hounds prepared them not one whit for this escapade.

Jo lowered herself carefully to the ground, one hand clenched around Katja's lead rope. Katja, who was already vigorously grazing. I plonked myself down nearby.

"So," Jo began. "We hit firth of Thames, then do we go up the west coast and pop over further up where it's less populated, or do we keep going east and risk the east coast?"

"Well it seems to be hitting the populated centres first," I added. "I remember some guys in Marokopa camp were still lurking around well after the Tron and Taupo went quiet, so it's doing the zombie thing of spreading to the populations _before_ heading for the less populated areas. Even Rotovegas was still up when we went dark, so maybe it's travelling the path of greatest populations?"

"Then it'll go to Rotorua before Thames, but it'd be even-steven as to whether it'd do Whangamata first, 'cause that'll be where lots of people will go to, I bet," Daisy continued. "Then Pauanui and, at most, Whitianga, but that shit's all smallfry compared to Welliboot, even Hastings."

"But it's on its way up _anyway_, and there were signs it was also spreading south."

"I say we go via Thames and avoid the east coast," Jo said.

"It'd also be quicker to cross the peninsular further up where it's narrow." Daisy tipped her head back on her shoulders and stared up at the sky.

"Well we'll hit the firth today for sure, it won't be more than a few hours ride, then we'll just keep the shore on our left and keep going until our butts fall off." I sighed. A rough guide was twenty five kilometres a day. Which wasn't particularly helpful as I was _spectacularly_ shit at distances, and none of us had thought to pack a fucking _map_. It's the end of the world and we're relying on memory to stop ourselves from getting lost.

A friend of mine, fortunately in the South Island now, once told me she had little cutout pieces of map in her brain, and she had to fit them together as best she could to get to where she wanted to go. I had a retarded monkey with a ballpoint pen playing join the dots all over my internal maps. It really didn't work so well.

"Alright," I groaned, hauling myself up from the ground. "Let's get our backsides back into those torture devices." The dogs stirred and blinked at me, long faces and woefilled eyes gazing onwards. But they got to their feet as we checked hooves and girths and (stiffly) remounted.

"I could go for an ass massage already," Daisy grizzled as we set off. I absolutely agreed with her sentiment.

"Tomorrow's going to be shithouse," I said. And it was. It really, really was.

We continued on our thirty-on fifteen-off for the remainder of the day, stopping for an hour at lunch, after which we _really_ didn't want to get back up into the saddles. But we did. We caught sight and scent of the ocean before mid-afternoon and changed tacks slightly, angling ourselves more south so that we would approach the East Coast Road, and anyone travelling by it, at an angle. We hit a stream and followed it, sticking close to the bush overhang for as much cover as it would allow us, until we sighted the road ahead.

We doubled back and had our break, tucked around the bend of the river and bush and (we hoped) hidden from sight. Well, since no one rushed us while we were watering ourselves and our animals and resting our sore buttocks, we'd either managed to avoid notice or there was just no one around. I pulled out some knives. Handed one to Daisy and one to Jo, kept two for myself. We didn't unstrap the rifles or Daisy's bow – the last thing we wanted was to start another stampede. Still, Daisy pulled out her binoculars and scoped out the road, peering between trees to get a good look.

She could only see north of the bridge. But that was clear. Deserted. Not even a dead car. We mounted and set off quickly, trying to stay under cover as much as we could.

The horses grew jittery with our nerves as we reached the road, ears twizzling in every which direction. The hounds were silent, ears pricked for any noise. The only noise was the jangle of tack and the thump of hooves. In only a few steps we would be naked, bared for the world to see on the road. I clucked the horses on, and they stepped onto the tarmac. Stopped when we pointed them over the bridge. Snorted.

But Katja was nothing if not fiesty, and she took the first step forward, and then we were gaiting comfortably across the bridge, down off the road down the other side and back up against the bush. The relief was as palpable as my bladder, which was suddenly and rather alarmingly full. I ground my teeth and braced my hips and thanked every deity I could think of that I'd bought _smooth_ moving horses instead of trotters as every jolt brought me _that_ much closer to wetting myself from anxiety.

When at last we'd put enough distance between ourselves and the road, we all slid off and I dashed into the bushes to relieve myself.

"Oh, god, my turn," Jo whimpered as I climbed back up the slope and took over the leads. She scrabbled down and, after a few moments, walked back towards me looking much less pinched in the face.

"Should have gone before that. Always pee before a job interview, and that's a shitload scarier than a damn job interview," I murmured. Daisy slid off as well, and Jo and I squatted down to rest our legs. The horses were drenched with sweat but, thankfully, still up for the job of continuing our trip when Daisy returned. We continued past paddocks still filled with cows, the ocean always to our left, until we cast long shadows with the dipping sun.

We found a spot, tucked over a rise in the paddock and hidden from the road, separated from the ocean by mangroves. It wasn't ideal, but it would do, and we were all too exhausted to complain. Jo and Daisy set up the tent while I sorted our tack and hobbled the horses. They'd all been introduced to hobbles to desensitise them to pressure on the legs in case they got caught up in something. Now it was all that stopped them from disappearing off into the middle distance and us losing our best form of transport.

"I'll take first watch," Jo said, stretching her legs out in front of her and flexing forward to stretch out her back. Daisy groaned and twisted her back. My knees had long since seized up and now I was waddling, butt cheeks complaining loudly at every step.

"We'll eat dinner first, then see what time it is, but say we're up and packing up at butt-fuck-six-o'clock?" I suggested, hauling over the saddle bag with food in it. "If I take first watch I can make sure the dogs get something to eat." I'd need to walk them around a bit to find some rabbits, but once they hopped out at dusk, the wolfhounds would make short work of running them down.

Daisy put her head in her hands. "I don't want to wake up at six," she said. "This is balls."

"No, this is shit," Jo clarified. "It's also quite possibly the end of the world, or at least the end of something, so we should probably try to get an early start." Jo was a great voice of reason.

"Okay, bed time at six, I'll take the four hour watch, then Daisy I'll wake you up for the second one and wake Jo up for the last watch at two. Jo, we'll do the pack up if you need a quick nap after that and then we'll head again." We all sighed and stared at the saddlebag I'd pulled over, willing it to open and present us with a feast more scrumptious than dried figs and jerky.

But we chewed away quietly, each too sore and tired to bother with conversation. Or too lost in our own thoughts. Jo was totally glazed, Daisy's eyelids already drooping. Mine were, too, but a brisk walk around the perimeter would just have to do to keep me awake. The girls stumbled down to the mangroves to brush their teeth and have a final night-time pee, then slumped into the tent. It took no time at all before they were fast asleep, snuggled up in in their sleeping bags.

I stood up and stretched. Zoloto and Vinnie, my two black hounds, were out cold. They didn't even twitch when I moved about the camp. Pavel and Xena, my beautiful young brindle girl, were more awake and their eyes tracked me, blearily, but tracked me. I sat and watched the light play in the mangroves and the sky wash to orange as the sun trickled its way down the sky. Vinnie came to rest his head in my lap and Xena huddled up against my back. It wasn't exactly warm now that it was turning to dusk. It may not quite be frosty tonight, but we would be glad for the extra warmth the hounds offered.

The horses nickered to themselves quietly, nosing their way through the plentiful grass. Perignon sniffed a nearby mangrove before deciding it wasn't worth pursuing and went back to her grazing. I could feel the melancholy creeping in on the darkness and shook myself off, standing to take the hounds for their evening walk slash optimistic hunt. I couldn't feed them, but bunnies were plentiful, and shit they were quick enough for it.

We crept over the mound and into the field of cows. They were dozing or milling around one portion of the pasture, leaving us free to cavort about the other. Pavel went whipping towards them, tail spinning in his excitement, but a quick whistle halted him mid-stride and brought him back, bounding his excitement and head turned over his shoulder to watch the bovines.

It took no time at all before they'd disturbed a rabbit and off they all went, streaks of fur and legs and pin-point turns. Vinnie, despite being the oldest (or perhaps because of it) was the one to catch it. He brought it back to me with all the airs of a lord granting a boom on one of his subjects, but when I offered it back to him, he fell on it with relish. I ushered the other three off to follow suit.

Pavel and Xena had never been blooded. In fact, I'd discouraged _all_ chasing. Especially at first, as everything that moved was fun chasey times! Not quite appropriate behaviour in city dogs. But they were well and truly getting into the swing of things, Pavel's white tail was a flag in the long grass as he bounced and explored.

It didn't take long for everyone to catch, and then devour, a bunny each. The sun had dipped below the horizon and we all trudged back to camp, full and tired. I was so exhausted I had to keep shuffling my body to stop myself from dropping off. Especially once the zois had settled down around me. The sound of the water lapping through the mangroves was far too soothing.

Every muscle creaked and groaned as I got up to wake Daisy for the second watch. As she stumbled out, rubbing her eyes and grizzling, I waddled down to brush my teeth. Oral hygiene. Especially with the end of the world (and, presumably, the end of modern dentistry), avoiding cavities was vitally important. We would have more important shit to expend antibiotics on than tooth infections.

I stripped my outerwear in the front portion of the tent, folding everything neatly in the corner and stepped into a pair of squeaky clean and new merino thermal pants and singlet. I checked Pavel and Xena over for muck before letting them into the tent as well, closed up and crawled in to the second partition where our sleeping bags were laid out. Jo was sleeping like the dead and didn't twitch as I climbed into my own sleeping bag and was flopped on by two large dogs. Despite the discomfort, I had never fallen asleep so quickly.

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